Being part of a large family certainly has its perks. There is always someone to play with, or should I say, fight with. You never have to engage yourself in one man hide and seek, and everything comes in multiple sets, even spankings.
And the whole birth order thing has merit as well. I can see it even in my own kids. I would be interested to see if my kids were the same if I switched the order in which they were born or if the change would actually take place in me as the parent. I think that perhaps it was not birth order that led to this particular moment in history that I would like to share, but instead it was more of the parental erosion that occurs when you have multiple children. Parental erosion involves the wear and tear that occurs from having each consecutive child. It is what happens to you, the feeling of being washed away, piece by piece, every working brain cell slipping slowly from your body along with any common sense that went with it. Until finally, what was once a very intelligent, beautiful, self sufficient, well meaning adult is reduced to a blubbering fool with your shirt on inside out, trying to wrangle children through the grocery store.
And sure enough in the midst of one of your blubbering episodes, you find yourself guilty of walking into that "one moment" in your parenting journey that you won't ever forget because every time it is mentioned you cringe with the knowledge that maybe "that" was THE moment where you screwed up your kid forever. My mom and dad had their moment with me at the tender age of four.
Truth is, I would hardly say that I am scarred. In fact in my warped and crazy mind, I kind of think I turned out just fine. Even if I was blind for a while. :) My reaction runs more along these lines - I GET IT NOW. I understand what it means to have three kids under the age of 5. I know what it is like to try and balance children and a husband and a household and a job and, and, and..... I know what it means to be tired. I know what it means to live on one income, to cut coupons, to be thrifty, to have to say no. I know what it means to be so swept up in the whirlwind of life that sometimes you forget. You forget to cut eye holes out for your kids. Uniforms are worn dirty because there has been no time for washing, papers don't get signed, cards don't get sent, you can't remember if spelling homework got done or not, houses are never truly clean, and birthdays are celebrated three times instead of one because schedules just don't match up.
I get it, Mom and Dad. And I for that, I am grateful. Grateful for "my moment" as well as many other significant moments in my childhood. Those moments that have shaped me into the well rounded adult that I claim to be today. It is these moments that have stayed with me. The ones that pass so quickly but seem to live in our minds forever. The moments we laugh about now as adults and pass on to our children.
I even think, secretly, we as adults hope that we too may be so lucky as to have the opportunity to screw up with our own kids. To teach them that we as parents are not perfect but human. To teach them that no matter what happens in our life, there is always time to get it right the next time. To teach them the art of failure and of trying again. Lessons that we all learn and thrive from. Lessons that shape us into confident, functioning, contributing members of society hopefully only to be reduced once again to blubbering idiots, shuffling children through the grocery store.
So thanks Mom and Dad. Thanks for screwing me up. I hope to pass it on.
